I’m no poet, but I’m very jealous of those who can write poetry. Why not contribute a poem – 100 words or less? (From Emma Baird)
I’m no poet, but I’m very jealous of those who can write poetry. Why not contribute a poem – 100 words or less? (From Emma Baird)
Jane Reid
Robert Frost had miles
To go before he could sleep
On a snowy eve.
Tomorrow I too have
Promises to keep, but snow
And ice will jail me.
All of which may show
A horse is the way to go
In ice and snow.
Amy Friedman
Cinquain
New form
Can I write
A credible sample now?
Hm.
Amy Friedman
Do you do Haiku?
I’m not sure how to foster
true and blue Haiku …
Eric Smith
@Jan Jorgensen–scanned the thread above and noticed your reference to Ferlinghetti’s “The World is a Beautiful Place.” I learned of that one in 1967 or so. I remembered it because of its allusion to Hamlet’s “. . . Thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. . . .”
Janette Jorgensen
Eric, The world is a beautiful place resonated with the angst-ridden teenager that I was …
Amy, hmmmm (with chuckle)
Eric Smith
Musicians
You skirted the issue,
No awkward diplomat
Why you kept your golden
Sphere from mine.
Afraid to boil over I
Remained outside even
As your eleventh-hour concession
To consummations arrived
So
Is it true?
Are you declining in Boston?
Those fine Texas fingers drumming
Into a stark table?
Keep drinking, Susan.
I, the one man you never embraced,
Insist upon perfection.
Ann-Louise Truschel
To all of you talented poets (myself not included), here’s a free-to-enter poetry contest with a first prize of $1000. The deadline to enter in April 1, 2015. No limit on length.
https://winningwriters.com/our-contests/wergle-flomp-humor-poetry-contest-free
Gordon Lawrie
This is a very, very rare effort which popped into my head today.
Tiny Creature
Tiny creature, nameless yet,
What adventures lie in wait
For you, what simple twists of fate
Will shape your destiny?
How will fortune dictate
Your journey?
If God exists, I’ll ask him this:
Protect this little one with all of His
Heavenly power, wrapped in a kiss –
But tiny creature, never fear,
If there’s no God or he cannot hear
Those who love you will be there
To love, to hold, to feed, to care.
Go forward, tiny creature, go
Yours is the day that’s yet to come
Yours is the world I’ll never know;
May those tiny, sleepy eyes some day
See where a better future lies.
Pretend I can cast some magic spell –
I do it now and wish you well:
Enjoy your life, enjoy the show,
And as you grow, the world will grow.
Janette Jorgensen
this is lovely, Gordon …
Russell Conover
Indeed … very nice, Gordon. I haven’t written a new poem in way too long (not to mention the longer stories I’ve been putting off for even longer), and you’ve inspired me to get the ball rolling on both.
Janette Jorgensen
the anti-eucharist
let there be: (seedless)
oranges
grapes
tomatoes
ever aware of market values
let us create
convenience
and move beyond
planned obsolescence
to the hybrid which can
not reproduce itself
insure seed sales
do not let them be
fruitful, multiplying
filling the earth with bounty
once life waited within fruit
vulnerable to disease, easy
prey to insect and bird
now let us reanimate with proteins
infuse with pesticide
pregnant with death
let fruits die
unfulfilled
having lost their savour
in the biotechnological process
let us not question our wisdom
our motives
do not ask us:
what becomes of those
who ingest death?
Janette Jorgensen
I’ve just revised this and I am still wondering… perhaps I want to switch two stanzas around again …. hmmm… maybe “pregnant with death” stanza needs to go before “once life waited within fruit” stanza ???
Eric Smith
I’d say “no.” I was going to recommend moving the “pregnant” stanza to the end, if anything.
Maybe we can start a thread of stories we previously submitted and want to rewrite. Boy, would that be weird or what? Or maybe a thread of stories by other people that we rewrite for them. I have 135 to work on. Well, maybe that’s not such a good idea after all. Better to keep going forward?
Janette Jorgensen
Oh Russell, this will drive you crazy …after all of your trials and tribulations with notices … I just received an email from LinkedIn with a comment from Eric on this post, which isn’t even posted yet !! Doesn’t that beat all ?!
Janette Jorgensen
oh my gosh, and of course while I was typing it appeared !!!
Janette Jorgensen
revisions can be a sign of forward motion —
Janette Jorgensen
double wow … I just noticed (am I slow or what?!) that the delete has returned to LinkedIn
Gordon Lawrie
“Pregnant with death” is a good phrase, isn’t it?
But even although I agree with the thrust of your poem, Jan, I have to declare an interest: I like my grapes seedless and positively hate it when I accidentally chew an orange pip. (I don’t often eat them as a result.) You’ll be relieved to know that I can deal with tomato seeds.
Janette Jorgensen
But, Gordon, have you ever noticed that the fruit with the seeds has more flavour?! Pregnant with death is a tragic image but I thought it was startling – so I used it…
Emma Baird
Wonderful poem Janette. (And I’m with you on the fruit with seeds having more flavour, even if it’s less convenient.)
Gordon Lawrie
I quite like my pomegranates to have seeds.
Janette Jorgensen
ah pomegranates …. they play an important role in one of my next works … now if I can only get time and space and the animator to pull it off …
Jane Reid
Residents of eastern U.S. will recognize this
An Inexact Science
The upper air filled
With threatening moisture
And cold. Bad omens
An angry storm loomed
Large in predictions of danger
But fickle winds veered.
Weather prediction
Can leave not snow but egg
On forecasters’ faces.
I’m still catching up on posting the new poems, due to my LinkedIn comment e-mail disappearance. The next few poems, however, were recently posted to the F.F.F. Challenge discussion in the LinkEds & Writers group. I’ll try to post a few poems here periodically, but in the meantime, enjoy. — Russell
(Untitled) by Heide Hepler
There once was a lady named Emma
Who knew that her work was quite clever.
She wrote every day,
With or without pay,
And knew she’d be remembered forever.
Charles Pellegrino
Isaac Asimov, to Home on the Range:
Clone, clone of my own,
with her Y chromosome changed for an X.
And when I’m alone, with my very own clone,
we’ll have better incest than Edipis Rex.
(The following comments may be slightly out of order, but hopefully they’re all here.)
Gordon Lawrie
Well I’m glad you didn’t get the “historic snowstorms” that were predicted, Jane. Be grateful you don’t live in the British Isles, where the Atlantic climate means that the forecast is statistically wrong every sixth day. That doesn’t sound too bad until it’s pointed out that apparantly if you predict that tomorrow’s weather will be the same as today’s, you’ll get it right 75%.
And as I write, there’s a rare – and forecast to the minute – snowstorm in Edinburgh. That doesn’t happen too often.
Emma Baird
Jane, I’m glad too that you didn’t get those storms!
Jane Reid
Thank you, Emma and Gordon. Weather forecasting is still treacherous — far too many variables, But some of our TV meteorologists like to warn that; the sky is falling any time there’s a prospect of storm.
Ann-Louise Truschel
Emma, an idea for future writing contributions:
Take the last line of someone else’s story or poem and make it the beginning line of your story or poem.
Thoughts?
Eric J. Smith
ALT,
Great idea. I think this idea requires a separate thread. Suggest you start one and state the ground rules–such as make all contributions so many words (100, 250, 500) and throw down the gauntlet. The next person begins with the last line (or any line?) and then, given the number of words prescribed, will have space to go off in a new direction and create something that stands on its own. Since the continuing stories are bounded by a certain number of words, Gordon and Russell can include them in their blogs. I like the idea since it gives participants a nudge to get started. Yes, major cool!
ejs
Jane Reid
That sounds like it could be fun.
Tammy Mezera
Ohhhh .. now poetry is more my flavor 🙂 I undoubtedly love short stories too!
________________________________________________________
The Holding
Where are we
in the sensing, the push of pulse
if I am honest
I miss evaporating into the air
the density of our world
becoming ghostly
traveling admissions
meeting anomalies
touching by curiosity and questions
Darling, what are afraid of
in yielding again to the unknown
or is truth left only for strangers
to embody change
a willing possession and purge
equal to lust, resistance lost
we must now break definition
and move from our knowing
to endanger who we are
and what we have
to soar again
in a sky too vast
for the holding
Copyright Tammy Mezera 2015
Ann-Louise Truschel
Eric, I took your suggestion and started a thread on the Flash Fiction Friday site called “The Last Line.”
Gordon Lawrie
Tammy, I just love that.
Tammy Mezera
I am really glad Gordon 🙂 Thank you.
Russell Conover
Shoot–I haven’t written any new poems in way too long. I really need to advance beyond the simpler haikus and branch into some more complex stuff. Life’s busy, but we all have (or should make) time for writing, right? I’ll see what I can do here.
Gordon Lawrie
A former colleague died at the weekend. He was a maths teacher, but he much preferred writing poetry. Here’s my favourite, which Leonard Cohen read out at his concerts occasionally.
Weather Report, by Andrew McGeever
A pessimist is someone
who goes around saying
it’s going to rain.
I am not a pessimist:
I’m soaked to the skin.
Marilyn R. Freedman
As usual, I haven’t hit the target exactly. Two words over this time. But I would love your feedback on this poem that came to me a couple of years ago and has been sitting, waiting to be finished.
Two context points: the name of the street I live on is Tanglewood Way. The back yard ends in a copse of woods beyond which is another street of houses. The name of that street is Twin Brook. The whole area used to be a farm with an apple orchard. Some of the old apple trees are scattered through the copse of woods, which is divided by a brook that runs in two channels.
Down in the Tangle Wood
Down in the tangle wood
by the twin brook,
apple trees too old to bear fruit
catch my hood
and drop twigs as I pass
some unknown cone of an object—
a plant
poking dark green and dried-blood red
through the matted sopping leaves
and snow melt
of mud season.
A red stained hole in the snow,
evidence that the coyote has been by to visit
the bunnies
in the pile of fallen branches, old Christmas trees,
and other detritus of a winter that has lasted
a bit too long.
Apple trees too old to bear fruit,
like me,
awaken to spring.
Eric J. Smith
Marilyn,
You are easily on or under budget–simply delete the first word, “Down.” That way you lose the double preposition. Later on delete “a bit” in the fourth from the last line–you don’t need those two words–they make your language less immediate and also farther separate “lasted” from “long” which provides you alliteration. You can also delete the “that” and the “by” from the coyote line.
ejs
Russell Conover
Full disclosure: This poem is NOT my own (actually found it on Facebook), but I just had to share.
Haiku City
Take me down to Hai-
ku City where the grass is
green, and the dammit.
(Note: We’re really behind on posting poems here to WordPress, but are working to catch up again. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, this poem was posted to the 100-word story page of F.F.F. on LinkedIn.)
Flying by Eric Smith
Special snowflakes curl
Flying past the houses
Over the tallest buildings
Pushing down
Against cold air
Invisible arms flapping
Slow, steady
Eyes closed
Breathing rhythmically
Till the sun
Pushes through the shade
Opening our eyes
And we fall
Into consciousness
Emma Baird
Marilyn, I love that you live in Tanglewood Way! What pretty images that sums up. Russell – thank you for sharing – genius.
Marilyn R. Freedman
My first thought, Emma, on reading “live in Tanglewood Way” is that I don’t live right in the street! 😉 But I think that use of “in” versus “on” is a difference between American English and Scottish English.
Another neat thing about Tanglewood is that there is a music “place” in the Berkshires, west of here called Tanglewood Music Center, which is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I’ve loved music all my life. Sometimes I hear it in the sounds around me. I’ve always wanted to go to a Tanglewood concert, but haven’t yet even though I’ve lived in the Boston area for 30 years.
http://www.bso.org/micro-sites/tanglewood-music-center/home.aspx
Fog by Eric J. Smith
Depression starts as fog.
He penetrates your pores,
Deadens your synaptic sparks,
Pulls your flesh into a frown
As heavy as your most destructive sins.
Unchecked, he poisons your morning
Coffee, leaving nothing for the
Start of the day but doughnut holes,
Sighs from the diaphragm, and eyes
Bleary from his insidious smoke.
Act now before he steals
Your will, or this sonofabitch
Will handcuff you to the bed,
Have his way and leave you
Shaking, terrified, helpless.
Act now, throw him off.
Use your power to sap
His strength (your weakness).
Yes, your power to change
The circumstance that gives
Him life.
Jane Reid
Eric, this is extremely, impressively good. And a vividly accurate description as well.
Ann-Louise Truschel
I agree with Jane, Eric. Those of us who are poetically challenged envy you.
Marilyn R. Freedman
Powerful, Eric. Powerful.
(This one’s being copied from the main hundred-word story thread. I hope to post the more recent poems soon, too. — Russell)
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and St. Nick’s in a Fix, by Jo Oldani Osborne
“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas would soon come to share.
“Poor kids! I’ve been grounded: Paris Climate Advice.
No coal for the Naughties, no gifts for the Nice.
“Who knew my sleigh was a Volkswagen edition,
Rigged with a chip to fake its emissions?
“Confoundit! Darnit! Vexing! How Stupid!
My elves’ work is wasted, the world’s air too soot’ed.
“What’s more! My name! ‘A PC transgression.’
My Sainthood, it seems, is simply too Christian.
“HOWEVER —-
“Children are children, they all need Love’s light.
Carbon Foot Print be darned, I’m coming –Tonight!”